Did He Ever Really Have a Human Experience - re "Biblical Jesus"

[William]

Q: Given the information available, how can anyone claim that Jesus was ever really a human being, other than the form he occupied appeared to those who saw it, to be human?

Some bullet points re that information available.





° He was not the off-spring of two human parents.

















° He remembered a prior existence and spoke about it to his followers, often.

















° He was able to do things which appeared to be magic, but were actually miracles, because they were not the product of human invention [underhanded trickery] but rather the product of some type of channeling. [overhanded [divine] trickery]












The above examples are enough to get the ball rolling...

[William]

Biblical Jesus makes it clear that his inspiration came from who he called his Father.

So do billions of other people.

Their claims are all different to Jesus's claim, as none of those billions I have encountered, claim to have gained their knowledge prior to becoming Human.

Perhaps you are one of those who are claiming this of your own knowledge of The Father?

[William]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #78]

The points in the OP have been thoroughly debunked.

Not so.

Stating something in an opening post doesn't make it true.

What I stated about biblical Jesus is acceptable authority in this forum. If you do not believe what biblical Jesus had to claim about himself, is true, that has no bearing on the topic of this debate, in this forum.

The OP suggest that having a "genuine human experience" (conveniently left undefinded)

Point Of Order
A genuine human experience has been defined in the OP through the device of showing three points about biblical Jesus that are clearly NOT genuine, ordinary Human Experience.

Point One of OP

is dependent on three things , namely :
a) being conceived and born in the usual fashion

Check.

The Claim:

DEBUNKED : Could the first human Adam have had a genuine human experience since biblically he had no human parents?

That is not a debunk. That is a question.

And the reply-answer has been given to the claimant.

The Evidence:

I am not arguing biblical Adam was involved with mysticism, or retained his memories of a prior existence, which is what I AM arguing re biblical Jesus.

Furthermore, I am willing to concede that anyone who has at least one of the same three attributes as biblical Jesus had - in this case, Adam [and subsequently Eve] - then they too, did not have a genuine Human Experience.

If we are to agree that such points constitute non-genuine Human Experience, then we can proceed.

Or;

Re: Premise:

We can agree that these examples of extraordinary Human Beings are actually what constitutes "Ordinary Genuine Human Experience" and therefore, those who are not extraordinary, [the rest of us] are the actual ones who are NOT having a genuine Human experience.

Either way, until the premise is agree to, no debunking has been done.

Point Two of OP

b) not having memories that are unique :

Point of Order: [1]

The OP does not make that statement. The clamant has added a twist in order to perhaps make the illusion debunking has taken place.

DEBUNKED: Would Jesus' memories of his prehuman existence negate him being a human being while on earth?

Point of Order:[2]

The clamant then adds a strawman to give apparent substance to the claim. The OP did not argue Jesus didn't have an experience of being Human. The OP argues that the extras Jesus came with, made it impossible for Jesus to have a genuine/ordinary Human Experience.

Therefore, there is no requirement on my part to reply to a strawman argument as if it were genuine argument re OP and subject matter therein.

No debunking has been done, except that whatever strawman my opponent is beating up on over yonder, while giving the appearance of thoroughly debunking 'something', said 'something' is not my business/the business of the OP subject.

Point Three of OP

c) not being able to perform miracles :

Point of Order:

Nowhere does the OP claim that Jesus was unable to "perform miracles".

The Evidence;

He was able to do things which appeared to be magic, but were actually miracles,

DEBUNKED: Can ordinary human beings be given supernatural powers?

Point Of Order
Another question referred to as "debunking".

The question itself forces another question.

Q: When an ordinary Human is "given supernatural powers", how is that Human THEN 'ordinary'?

Further to that, as pointed out in the OP, biblical Jesus doesn't claim to have been given such powers AFTER he entered the Human form he occupied, but that he brought all that with him.

Which is to say, otherwise one would be arguing that Jesus learned all his skills and came to the realization that he must have come from a prior existence, and didn't actually have those memories to begin with, but acquired those memories after becoming a genuine Human being.

Of course - while that is an interesting argument, I dear say most Christians would have a hard time accepting that, let alone arguing for that.

But apparently, that is exactly what my opponents appear to be doing.

[myth-one.com]

There is a history of biblical Jesus Christ outside of the Bible.

Roman Senator Cornelius Tacitus wrote that Nero blamed "a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace." He goes on to explain that "Christus [Christ], from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty [crucifixion] during the reign of Tiberius at the hand of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome.

So He was a human who actually existed.

Did He Ever Really Have a Human Experience - re "Biblical Jesus"

Assuming that is also part of the OP question, the answer is: Yes.

He died by being crucified.

That was a human experience.

Ta da!

[William]

[Replying to myth-one.com in post #83]

There is a history of biblical Jesus Christ outside of the Bible...
...He was a human who actually existed.

Point Of Order:

The OP does not dispute that there was an historical Jesus of which the biblical Jesus is modelled off of. [To what degree we cannot know - but it is not the focus of the thread topic and so is redundant as argument because it is straw-man.]

He died by being crucified.

That was a human experience.

Point Of Order:
The OP does not dispute that there was an historical Jesus of which the biblical Jesus is modelled off of. The OP is not asking if this personality had a human experience, any more than it is declaring that one cannot have a human experience unless one ends up crucified. Both notions are absurd.

For the umpteenth time, I remind my opponents that the question is whether it can be claimed Jesus had a genuine ordinary Human Experience, given the points the OP uses to show that he cannot have had such a thing, as many Christians otherwise claim.

______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Please Note:
I think it fair to say that there need be a limit to the number of straw arguments made before something is done to warn folk to stick to the actual thread argument. Otherwise it becomes farcical and in that, simply attempts to derail the topic altogether.

For those using such straw-man techniques, please consider changing your approaches in respect of savory debate.

Thank You in advance.

W

[myth-one.com]

Q: Given the information available, . . .

What information is available??

What is a savory debate?

[myth-one.com]

Biblical Jesus makes it clear that his inspiration came from who he called his Father.

So do billions of other people.

Their claims are all different to Jesus's claim, as none of those billions I have encountered, claim to have gained their knowledge prior to becoming Human.

I am referring to prayer, not any "prior knowledge".

Jesus did not have power of His own to heal people, raise people from the dead, and perform other miracles. We can know this because Jesus prayed! If He was a God during His thirty-three years on the earth, He could have performed such feats directly with His own godly powers. Since He was a man this was not the case. He had to pray to God His Father to perform acts beyond His human capabilities.

Billions of religionists of various religions gain inspiration from prayer on a daily basis.

[Mattathias]

If a person having no theological presuppositions, and no knowledge of what the Bible was even about, were to read the Bible for the first time, would that person come away from that experience thinking that when they read about Jesus they were reading about a human person?

[Eloi]

The Bible describes Jesus as a normal human. Although we know some special details that distinguish him from other human beings, Jesus had to be raised like any baby, learn to walk, talk, etc. His differences as a perfect man were in his mental and physical capacity, and others that have to do with his physiology and mentality, but the powerful things that he did were possible because Jehovah had given him his powerful spirit; Without that strength he would not have been able to perform those miracles; in fact, other imperfect men were able to perform similar miracles also with the power of God's spirit.

Since the Jews knew about those earlier prophets who did mighty works, they never believed that Jesus was a demigod or something like that. Jesus' nature was purely human, like Adam's. Every time we read references from other ordinary people of his day about how they viewed Jesus, they spoke of him as a man who had the support and power of God.

The ideas of a "christ-god", a "man-god", "double nature", etc., did not arise during the time when the disciples who knew and followed him were alive. It was an erroneous idealization of the Son of God, trying to put him on the level of the pagan demigods.

Jesus Christ in heaven DOES NOT HAVE the same nature as he did when he was human.

[William]

Biblical Jesus makes it clear that his inspiration came from who he called his Father.

So do billions of other people.

Their claims are all different to Jesus's claim, as none of those billions I have encountered, claim to have gained their knowledge prior to becoming Human.

I am referring to prayer, not any "prior knowledge".

Jesus did not have power of His own to heal people, raise people from the dead, and perform other miracles. We can know this because Jesus prayed! If He was a God during His thirty-three years on the earth, He could have performed such feats directly with His own godly powers. Since He was a man this was not the case. He had to pray to God His Father to perform acts beyond His human capabilities.

Billions of religionists of various religions gain inspiration from prayer on a daily basis.

So in relation to point #3 in the OP;
He was able to do things which appeared to be magic, but were actually miracles, because they were not the product of human invention [underhanded trickery] but rather the product of some type of channeling. [overhanded [divine] trickery]

You are saying that he wasn't born with those abilities but was gifted them after the fact, by asking for them and that even then they were not his powers but he was acting as a channel and the miracles were performed by the one who was asked [through prayer]?

This implies that anyone can be used as a conduit for said abilities by asking [through prayer], and that the argument is really that those of us who do not channel such power either by not asking or by being rejected, are not actually having a genuine Human Experience.

Is that what you are arguing?

Are you also arguing that Jesus did not really have prior memories but was given those memories as part of his evolving relationship with The Father during the course/evolution of his Human Experience?

[William]

If a person having no theological presuppositions, and no knowledge of what the Bible was even about, were to read the Bible for the first time, would that person come away from that experience thinking that when they read about Jesus they were reading about a human person?

That is another way of asking what the OP is asking.

Clearly there is no other single human character from a book who has been portrayed in such a way that makes it obvious he was different from all the rest.

The impression given overall about the character is that he was a magic-god within human form and that character was tied into another character from other books - another magic-god who in that case, was not in human form.

That in itself shows us clearly enough that the character of Jesus was not as human as Christians seem to want us to believe that he was - which is why the thread exists - in order to study the reasons for the Christian claim that "Jesus was Human - like the rest of us".

According to the actual story, "No - he was not".